Creation Justice Team, Congregational UCC

09/26/2026

A landscape this tidy takes real effort, and that's exactly the problem. Every one of those stubby, uniformly trimmed stems in this bed represents a choice that traded winter wildlife habitat for a clean, manicured look, and the ecosystem cost of that choice is easy to miss because it's invisible from the sidewalk.

Roughly 30 percent of native bee species nest above ground rather than in soil, using hollow or pithy plant stems as tunnels where they lay eggs, provision them with pollen, and seal them off to overwinter as developing larvae or pupae. Those stems have to come from the previous year's growth, cut down and left standing rather than trimmed flush to the ground every fall. A bed cut back this uniformly, this completely, simply doesn't offer any of that structure. There's nothing left tall enough or hollow enough for a stem-nesting bee to use.

Birds lose out for a related but separate reason. Seed heads on coneflower, black-eyed Susan, and similar perennials are a genuine food source through the leanest stretch of winter, when insects and fresh vegetation have largely disappeared. Goldfinches in particular have bills specifically shaped to work seed out of a dried cone. Cut every stem down to a uniform stub before those seed heads even form or before birds have had the chance to work through them, and that food source simply isn't there when winter hits hardest.

Beneficial insects depend on this same standing structure and the leaf litter that typically accompanies it. Ladybugs, lacewings, and ground beetles, the predators that spend the growing season eating aphids and other actual garden pests, overwinter tucked into stems, bark crevices, and fallen leaves. A bed this clean, mulched but stripped of standing plant material, offers none of that shelter either.

None of this means a yard has to look wild or neglected. It means the fall instinct to cut everything down to a uniform, tidy stub is working directly against the wildlife that would otherwise spend the growing season pollinating and controlling pests for free. Leaving stems and seed heads standing until late winter costs nothing extra in effort, it simply means delaying the cleanup rather than skipping it. 🐝

09/16/2026

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09/15/2026

The Vatican has officially declared environmental destruction a ”sin against creation and the Creator” in a major new doctrinal text.

The 29,000-word document, titled Caring for Our Common Home, elevates ecological concern from a merely political or scientific issue into a direct matter of personal faith.

Authorized under Pope Leo XIV, the text declares that destroying natural habitats, polluting, and exploiting resources are not just civic failures, but a 'sin against creation and against the Creator' that directly violates God's plan.

This shift from Pope Francis' earlier concept of 'ecological sin' to a more explicit 'sin against the Creator' is designed to reshape how believers view their daily environmental impact. The Vatican emphasizes that failing to safeguard the planet severely harms the poorest populations and future generations, distorting the core relationships that define humanity. By placing ecological action squarely in the realm of moral responsibility, the Church is challenging millions of people to treat environmental care as a fundamental requirement of their faith.

source: O'Connell, G. (2026). Vatican theological commission defines 'sin against creation and the Creator' in new document. America Magazine.

09/08/2026

The urge to cut every perennial down to tidy stubble each fall is understandable, but for a specific group of plants, that instinct actually works against both the plant and the wildlife depending on your garden through winter. These six perennials are genuinely better left standing rather than cut back at the end of the season.

Coneflower and black eyed Susan top the list for a reason tied directly to what happens after the flowers fade. Their spent seed heads are not just decorative texture through winter. According to the Xerces Society, standing seed heads on plants in the Asteraceae family provide a critical food source for overwintering birds, with goldfinches in particular relying heavily on coneflower and black eyed Susan seeds well into the colder months. Cutting these plants back in fall removes that food source entirely at a time when natural options are already scarce.

Lavender and sedum benefit from a different mechanism, one tied to the plant's own survival rather than wildlife. Both are somewhat marginally hardy in colder zones, and leaving the old woody stems and dried flower structures intact through winter provides genuine insulation for the crown of the plant, the same principle at work with hardy mums. Cutting lavender back hard in fall, rather than waiting until spring growth appears, is one of the more common reasons gardeners lose lavender plants that should otherwise have survived the winter fine.

Bee balm and yarrow round out the list, and both tie back to the pollinator and beneficial insect angle that runs through nearly every plant here. According to research summarized by the Xerces Society on overwintering habitat, many native bee species and beneficial insects use hollow or pithy plant stems as nesting sites through the cold months, meaning a stand of untouched bee balm stems left standing through winter may already be sheltering next spring's pollinators before a single new leaf appears.

The common thread across all six is that a perennial bed left standing through winter is rarely just visual laziness. It functions as active habitat, food source, and insulation all at once, doing quiet ecological work that a neatly cut back bed simply cannot provide. Come spring, once new growth is visibly emerging from the base of each plant, that is the ideal time to finally cut back the previous year's dried stems and seed heads, giving overwintering insects time to emerge first before their shelter disappears. 🍂

07/30/2026

Many thanks to Greensboro City Council April Parker for meeting with us and for serving as the Council's liaison to the Community Sustainability Council. Not only does she advocate for sustainability, but we are very impressed by her commitment to making Greensboro resilient in the face of climate change. Thank you, Councilmember Parker!

07/14/2026